# Every project, with an honest status

> Give every project an honest status: Active, Building, Acquired, On hold or Discontinued. Show your whole track record, not just the winners.

Active, Building, Acquired, On hold or Discontinued. Five words that tell visitors what is live, what is next and what is history.

## The five statuses

- **Active**: live and maintained. People can use it today.
- **Building**: in progress. A beta, a waitlist, a game in development.
- **Acquired**: sold to someone else. One of the best things a maker can show.
- **On hold**: paused, maybe for good, maybe not.
- **Discontinued**: shut down or archived.

Each template shows status its own way: a colored pill in Stack and Showcase, a dot in Minimal and Bento, a lowercase label like `on-hold` in Terminal.

## Why show the failures

A list of only winners looks either lucky or curated. A history with a few discontinued projects and an acquisition shows you have shipped, learned and kept going. People who follow builders understand that most projects do not work, and they respect makers who say so.

It also saves you messages. Nobody needs to ask whether an old app still works. Read [building in public: sharing revenue and failures](https://makerhandle.com/blog/building-in-public-revenue-and-failures).

## Status drives the leaderboard

Only **Active** and **Building** projects appear on the public [leaderboard](https://makerhandle.com/features/leaderboard), and the Bento template counts how many of your projects are live or building. Change a status with one click when something ships, sells or stops.

Want something off the page entirely? Hide it instead. It stays in your editor for later.

## Questions

### Can I add my own statuses?

No. The five statuses are fixed so they mean the same thing on every page.

### Should I list discontinued projects?

It is up to you. Many makers find an honest history builds more trust.

### Do statuses work on the free plan?

Yes. Every plan and every template supports them.

### What is the difference between On hold and hidden?

On hold is shown to visitors. Hidden projects are not shown at all.

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Source: https://makerhandle.com/features/project-status
makerhandle: makerhandle is a link in bio for makers and founders: every project with its status and revenue verified from Stripe, Paddle and more.